Climate Compatible Development: Generating Co-Beneﬁts from Climate Change Planning

Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, our climate continues to change, and people continue to adapt to new environments [...]

new policy concept, a critical consideration of CCD requires us to ask: where is the evidence that CCD is actually occurring? How prevalent is CCD? Where is CCD occurring? What does CCD look like in practice? What are the costs and benefits of CCD? and, are we able to ascertain the distributional effects of CCD (i.e., who wins, and who loses?) These questions have been asked, but not answered for the last decade [12]. Efforts have been made to address these research gaps, and to identify the prevalence of CCD in international adaptation and mitigation projects. For example, an analyses of 201 project design documents funded through the CDM, the Adaptation Fund, the Special Climate Change Fund, and the LDC Fund found that only 37% reported evidence of CCD [13]. Of those, only 17% of the documents substantiated the claims of co-benefits. It has become increasingly clear that despite the emergence of CCD policy, little empirical evidence exists of the contexts in which 'triple wins' occur, or the distributional consequences of CCD [14,15].
The aim of this Special Issue is, therefore, to reflect upon and critique the notion of joint action on climate adaptation, mitigation, and development. We return to some theoretical questions that remain unanswered: conceptually, what is CCD? Can triple wins be found? How are they generated? Who benefits, and at what cost? Additionally, how do we evaluate triple wins? To this end, this Special Issue documents triple wins across scales, for the most part providing evidence from individual case studies. Two key themes run through the papers in this Special Issue, both of which have significant implications for CCD policy effectiveness. First, monitoring and evaluation of 'triple win' policies remain haphazard and often lack in core elements such as community perceptions of winners and losers. Second, if 'triple wins' are required in policy initiatives, they need to be built into policy design and implementation at the project outset.
The first theme points to a knowledge and research gap. Specifically, there is an urgent need for more effective monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of CCD policies and programmes. Evidence needs to be collected on who benefits and who loses from CCD schemes. For example, are men more likely to benefit than women? Furthermore, how are other intersectional vulnerabilities and intergenerational equity issues addressed by CCD policy? At the national scale, where CCD policy is emerging, it is important to note that there is some limited evidence that CCD does not always create the desired benefits [10]. Klein et al. (2005, p. 582) [12] note: "there appear to be good reasons not to focus on creating (limited and sometimes far-fetched) synergies between mitigation and adaptation, as this could lead to projects that are difficult to implement and administer, are cost-ineffective and, when taken together, produce insufficient mitigation and adaptation benefits". The papers in this Special Issue provide insights into how to approach monitoring CCD, focussing on the importance of obtaining a range of stakeholders' perspectives, and ensuring that effective reporting systems are established from the outset of CCD policy development.
In response to the second theme, assuming that CCD is proven to be beneficial in certain contexts, we currently lack insight into how we can build inherently cross-departmental CCD into government policies [14]. We identified two challenges. One relates to the functional structure of governments. Most government departments, agencies, and public bodies are organised around specific topics (e.g., energy, forestry, land use, disaster risk management, communities, and housing). Government departments often operate in sectoral silos specifically to allow expertise to organise around themes and issues of relevance to the government. Complex challenges such as climate change rarely fit neatly within one government department. Antwi-Agyei et al. (2018) reinforce this point, noting that in Ghana, there is a lack of coherence in policy making between relevant sectors. A second challenge to the effective design of CCD policies is the lack of resources available to support and encourage policy development that seeks to deliver co-benefits, or triple wins. Pilato et al. (2018) point to this finding in Tanzania, noting issues of under-resourcing, unreliable information, and a lack of guidelines as hindering the development of CCD. Together, these two elements point to the importance of guidance on the potential costs and benefits of coherent cross-departmental CCD policy making.
We are still a long way from the point where we can give clarity on the benefits of CCD policies, or to evaluate the costs and benefits of CCD policies. Before we are able to understand the impacts of CCD policy, we must first document examples. The Global Stocktake offers an opportunity to do this, however, all CCD documentation, monitoring, and reporting needs to reflect on and substantiate the spatial and temporal impacts of the CCD policy on adaptation, mitigation, and development. Without this, we remain in a speculative environment where we can only theorise about the benefits from CCD. Funding: This research received no external funding.

Conflicts of Interest:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.